12
Locksley Castle
Joanna was going to be sick. She expected to vomit onto Bess’s body or the shoes of the man holding the candle. This felt different than seeing Horace killed. Horace would have done unspeakable things to her. She was glad he was dead so he couldn’t hurt her or anyone else. But here lay a beautiful girl Joanna had known, a girl whose greatest fault had been falling in love with someone of a more privileged class. Now, this girl was broken and dead, the blood from her head trickling like tiny rivers in between the pavers of the castle courtyard.
“What’s happened?” Guy pushed through the crowd until he stood beside the body. When he saw the girl’s face, he swore.
“Someone pushed her.” Joanna’s voice sounded small in her own ears.
“You saw this, Joanna?” Guy’s voice sounded frantic.
Gripple cleared his throat. “Joanna and I were watching for the ghost when we saw Bess fall. Joanna saw another person on the tower as well.”
Guy grabbed Joanna by the shoulders. “Who? Who did you see?”
“It was a man. I don’t know who. He pushed Bess off the tower.”
“He might still be up there. You men, come with me!”
Trying to pull herself together, Joanna looked at the body and knew this image would be emblazoned in her memory for as long as she lived. Bess’s hair was undone, and the long golden strands teased lightly about her face in the evening breeze. What should Joanna do now? There were no emergencies services to call for help.
“Step back, give us some room.”
Joanna heard Elaine’s capable voice and felt relief that someone else was here to take charge. Elaine knelt and crossed herself.
“God rest her soul. She was a troubled girl.” Elaine closed Bess’s eyes and put a hand on Joanna’s knee. “We need to move her inside.”
Elaine motioned to two men nearby and ordered them to take Bess to one of the rooms on the first floor of the keep. When the body had been removed, Elaine pulled Joanna into a standing position.
“Death comes to us all,” Elaine whispered in Joanna’s ear. “You can still do her service if you keep your head.”
Joanna nodded dumbly.
“There’s no one up there.” The voice belonged to Roger.
Guy and the men with him had returned to the courtyard. His face was taut with anger as he again seized Joanna by the shoulders. “Did you see his face?”
Joanna felt like she was crawling out of a tunnel as she tried to speak. “Only his silhouette.”
Guy cursed again and released her. “I want a roll taken of the castle. We need to know if anyone’s missing. Roger, see to it.”
“Come with me,” Elaine whispered, leading Joanna toward the keep. Another woman, older than Elaine, fell in with them. Joanna followed them into the tiny room where the men had laid Bess on a table. The three women stood staring at the body for several silent moments.
“We should notify her kin,” Elaine finally said. “Do you know her family, Maude?”
The older woman nodded. “Her father’s a cooper. From Barnsdale, I believe.”
“Who could have done this?” Joanna asked.
“I don’t know for certain.” Elaine sounded as though she was choosing her words carefully. “But I do know we need your help.”
“Me? What can I do?” Joanna looked at the body and shuddered. She knew that people in the Middle Ages prepared their own dead, and she wasn’t at all interested in being part of that.
“The stories you told tonight in the hall,” Elaine began. “They were true?”
“Sort of.” Joanna didn’t have the heart to be completely honest.
“You solve mysteries.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never solved a murder.”
“Then this will be your first.” Elaine’s tone indicated the matter was settled. “If you don’t find the man who killed Bess, he’ll kill again, don’t you see?”
Choosing to ignore the implication, Joanna crossed her arms. What if she got it wrong? What if Guy was the one who killed this girl? Would Joanna be able to save Jill if Joanna accused him of murder?
“It has to be you.” Elaine stared at Joanna, as if trying to make her understand. “Guy may have brought you here for his own purposes, but providence has something else in mind. I’d say it’s more than coincidence that when Bess is murdered, we have a mystery solver in the castle.”
That didn’t make any sense. No one in their right mind would choose Joanna for anything like this, especially if they knew her. She swallowed hard. “We should notify someone with more experience in these things, like the Sheriff of Nottingham.”
“Absolutely not!” Elaine’s voice was sharp. “The sheriff is looking for an excuse to seize this castle and its land for himself. There are good people here who must be protected. Guy favors you, and that puts you in a unique position to explore this murder and bring the man who killed Bess to justice, no matter who he is.”
“Even if it’s Guy?”
“Especially if it is.”
Joanna covered her face with her hands. She had no idea what she was doing.
“Joanna, there comes a time for each of us when we have to decide how we’re going to live the rest of our lives. Are you in control of your life, or are you turning that control over to a man?”
“I’m in control.”
Elaine and Maude nodded.
“I understand what you’re saying,” Joanna conceded. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do my best. What happens to Bess now?”
“Maude will get her fit for her family to see.”
“Most people at the castle have no kin here,” Maude added. “I’ve put the dead to rest for forty years at Locksley. I should straighten her before the stiffness sets in.”
Maude set to work right away. Joanna covered her face with her hands but watched the process through the spaces between her fingers.
“It’s the same as Lady Marian,” Maude observed.
Elaine nodded in agreement. “She landed in the same manner as well.”
“What do you mean?” Joanna asked.
“Broken necks, both of them.” Maude turned Bess’s head to examine it more closely. “And broken skulls. You don’t forget such a thing as that. Elaine and I were in this very room with Lady Marian two years ago.”
Joanna shivered involuntarily. “Who was Bess’s lover? If we knew, we’d have a suspect and possible motive.”
Elaine frowned. “Whoever bedded her had some funds. She hinted once that he gave her expensive gifts.”
“Might he have given her a ring?” Maude asked. “Because that’s what’s on the end of this necklace.” She pulled the chain from around Bess’s neck and passed it to Joanna.
It had to be a man’s ring. The wide silver band expanded into an oval approximately an inch and a half high. Before the oval on each side of the ring was carved a fleur de lis. Inside the oval nested a yellow cabochon inlaid with a red heraldric lion standing on its hind legs and facing left, forelegs pawing the air with claws extended.
“Do you recognize it?’ Joanna asked Elaine.
“God strike me if I don’t.” Elaine crossed herself. “That’s the Gisbourne family crest. This ring belongs to Sir Guy.”
Joanna felt as though someone had punched her in the stomach.
“He’s done it again.” Elaine’s expression was grim. “He killed Marian and Daisy, and now he’s killed poor Bess.”
“When Bess and I spoke earlier today,” Joanna remembered, “She had this ring hanging around her neck. She said it was a gift from her lover. If Guy gave it to her, why would he kill her? That strikes me as the kind of ring a man only gives someone he cares about.”
Maude shrugged. “We’ve all seen Guy manipulate people.”
Joanna thought of Guy’s plan to use her as bait to catch Robin Hood. She hadn’t thought to ask what the danger would be to herself or Jill with such a plan. Guy might be capable of killing a beautiful w
oman, or any woman for that matter.
“He killed her.” Elaine’s tone indicated she did not expect to be challenged on the subject.
“But why?” Joanna argued. “What we know so far doesn’t make any sense. We need to know who was absent from the hall.”
Elaine rolled her eyes. “Seems a lot of trouble when the answer is clear.”
“We can’t just see what we want to see.” Joanna spoke to herself as much as to Elaine because Joanna felt certain Elaine wanted Guy to be the murderer while Joanna wanted exactly the opposite to be true. “We have to be objective about this and investigate. So, if I was trying to figure out who was in the hall and who wasn’t, who could help me?”
“Sirsalon the butler,” Maude suggested. “He keeps careful track of everything in the hall.”
“And little track of anything else,” Elaine added bitterly.
Remembering the way Elaine had watched the tall, thin man with a beak-like nose in the hall that night, Joanna mentally filed away that piece of information for later contemplation.
“I’ll go talk to him, then.” Joanna tucked the ring into the tie-on pocket she wore.
“I have quite a bit of work to do.” Maude picked up Bess’s limp hand and laid it on the girl’s chest.
Elaine adjusted her apron. “Gripple can deliver the news to Bess’s father. He’s fast on his feet.”
Joanna and Elaine walked out together. As they walked toward the hall, Joanna asked, “Could you help me find something to write with, like quill and ink, and some parchment?”
“Why?”
“I need to keep track of the clues.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Joanna found Sirsalon in the great hall directing the servants who were cleaning the room after supper. When Joanna approached him and introduced herself, he stared down his nose at her.
“You strike me as a very observant man,” Joanna began. “I doubt anything happens in this castle without your noticing. I’m wondering, did you notice anyone leave the hall early tonight?”
“I noticed you didn’t leave,” Sirsalon replied.
“Obviously.” Joanna held back a sigh of irritation at the way he dodged her question. “Someone was up on the tower with Bess when she fell. I’m trying to determine which people weren’t accounted for so I can narrow down the suspects.”
“Suspects?” Sirsalon looked indignant. “It was a suicide.”
“Is that what you think?”
“This castle is a depressing place to live.”
“Suicide seems a little extreme, especially in a girl so young.”
“It’s the young ones who often commit suicide. They’re naive enough to believe there’s an escape.”
Smart-alecks apparently existed in every time period.
“Elaine suggested I talk to you.” Joanna watched his face closely for a reaction, hoping this new ploy would work. She detected a softening in his features at the mention of Elaine’s name. “She said you know everything that goes on in this hall. I could really use your help.”
“Then let me share this helpful news. I’ve learned the best way to stay alive is to not say anything at all. Bess should have known that, and if you’re smart, you’ll learn it too.”
He raised his eyebrows significantly and then walked away.
Discouraged, Joanna left the hall, but as she stepped into the blackness, she heard someone whisper her name. She didn’t see anyone, so she turned twice before she discovered a figure motioning to her from the shadows. Swallowing her fear that this person might actually be the murderer, Joanna walked slowly toward the shadow. As she got closer, she could see it was a short man with a round face and no front teeth.
“Bunt is my name,” said the man in a nasally voice. “I’m the baker. I heard you talking to Sirsalon, and he’s not telling you everything. See, he does know who comes and goes from the hall, most of the time, but he doesn’t tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Because he wasn’t there, see?” Bunt chuckled heavily, like a child taking delight in tattling. “We in the kitchens know he’s got himself a lady friend, see? Sometimes we catch him whistling to himself or picking flowers. He tries to keep it secret, see, but we all know.”
“Who is his lady friend?” Joanna asked, thinking of Elaine.
Bunt’s face fell. “Well, we haven’t quite figured that out. But it doesn’t matter, see, because Sirsalon left the hall tonight, while you was telling that lovely story, and maybe he was the one you saw on the tower with young Bess.”
Bess and Sirsalon. Joanna tried out the image of the two of them together in her mind, but she couldn’t see it. She was about to thank him and turn away when she stopped. “Did you notice who else was gone from the hall?”
“The whole high table—Guy, Walter, Gwen, and Roger.”
Joanna thanked Bunt for his help and decided to go to bed. As she climbed the stairs of the keep, her head spun. Fatigue prevented her from thinking clearly. She needed to write things down, but Guy had her journal and her purse. As she opened the door of her room, she thought longingly of her wedding notebooks full of sticky notes, index cards, removable pages, and photos, all categorized and clearly labeled with printed tab dividers. In the dim light of the fire a figure stirred. Guy.
She pressed her hand to her chest in a futile attempt to calm her racing heart. “You startled me.”
“What have you found?”
Thinking of the ring in her pocket, Joanna wondered how much to tell him. “Not much yet. Did you finish your census?”
“Everyone is accounted for but Walter and Gwen. They had an argument, apparently, and now they’re both missing.”
“What were they fighting about?”
“I don’t know.”
They stood in silence for several seconds before Guy spoke what she was thinking.
“You think I killed Bess.” His expression looked pained. “I wasn’t anywhere near the tower when she fell. The story you told—it made me think of Marian. I came back to my room to be alone.”
“And were you alone?” Joanna pulled out the ring and gauged his reaction.
His face was inscrutable as he took the ring from her and rubbed his finger affectionately over the crest. “Where did you get this?”
“We found it on Bess’s body.”
“This was meant to implicate me,” Guy concluded. “I lost this ring two weeks ago. I’ve had the servants turning over the castle for it. It belonged to my father. This coat of arms used to stand for the Gisbourne property in France, but such a place no longer exists. My father died penniless when I was a boy. This ring was all that was left of my father’s estate. I would never give it away.”
“Not even to a woman you loved?”
Guy snorted. “What would a woman want with such a thing?”
He snapped off the chain the ring had hung on, cast it into the fire, and slid the ring on his finger.
“Did Marian fall from the tower as well?”
Guy was silent for several seconds. “I’ve never killed a woman, Joanna. Men, certainly—but never a woman.”
Joanna wanted to believe him. Guy stood close to her, so close she could feel the heat from his body, and delicately pushed her hair back from her face. Her throat felt tight.
“I need your help, Joanna.” His voice was rough. “Clear my name. Find the true murderer, and I’ll make him pay for what he’s done.”
Joanna swallowed hard. “I could work more easily if I had my purse and my journal back.”
Guy leaned in and kissed her neck. “Clear my name, and it’s yours.”
Her head was so foggy that she couldn’t think clearly. She wanted him to kiss her again and again. Once she gave in, she wouldn’t be able to stop the momentum. That was how it had been with Mark—this same, pleasurable impulse when he was close, the longing for him to touch her. But Guy was even more magnetic than Mark. His air of danger pulled her in and made her want to—
Wait a minute. This was how she always got into trouble. She consistently fell for the wrong man and gave in to her feelings instead of what logic told her—that this man was bad news. Hadn’t Elaine predicted Joanna would end up in Guy’s bed? Didn’t women who were involved with Guy end up dead?
Joanna pressed her hands against Guy’s muscular chest and pushed him away. “I need sleep.”
“Is that all you need?” Guy studied her with smoldering eyes, and Joanna knew that if he approached her again, she wouldn’t have the strength to resist. She crossed her arms and tried to look stern.
“For tonight, yes.”
Guy grinned rakishly and exited. When he was gone, Joanna collapsed on the bed and breathed a sigh of relief. That was close.
Elaine sent a serving girl Joanna hadn’t met before to help her undress. The girl didn’t talk much, and Joanna didn’t question her. It was late, and Joanna felt exhausted and achy. But as she crawled into bed, she knew she couldn’t sleep. She kept replaying the scene of Bess’s murder, and every time she closed her eyes she saw Bess’s pale face with her dead eyes staring lifelessly at Joanna.
First thing tomorrow she needed to examine the murder site again in broad daylight. She also needed to get into Marian’s room. Having a plan of where to start her day gave her some degree of peace. When she finally fell asleep, Joanna dreamed she stood on top of the tower. Every time she turned around, Guy pushed her off. She tumbled again and again, but right before she hit the ground, she woke up sweating.